The present invention relates generally to the fields of data processing and telecommunications and, more particularly, to a system for the optimization of telephone contact campaigns by increasing the probability that an attempt to contact a party will be successful.
Telephone communication has become ubiquitous in contemporary society with the nearly universal availability of telephones. The telephone provides a fast and efficient means for contacting someone any time of day or night anywhere in the country or even the world. However, telephone communications only work if the person you are trying to contact answers the telephone. If that person is unavailable and the call is unanswered or someone else answers, the call is wasted. The caller has to either call again later or, if a message was left, wait for the person called to call back. In those situations where the person called is unlikely to return the call, such as telemarketing or dunning delinquent debtors for debt collection purposes, establishing contact with the desired party in the first instance is often the only way to make a connection.
Where a large number of people need to be contacted on a daily basis, e.g., debt collection or telemarketing, automated outbound dialing systems are used to expedite the contacting of as many people as possible by telephone in a limited time period. There are three basic components to an automated outbound dialing system. First, there is a computer in which a database containing the data records is stored. Second, there is an automated dialer into which the telephone numbers are downloaded from the host computer for automated dialing. Third, there are human operators to talk to the people contacted.
A set of telephone numbers are normally selected from a database in the computer and downloaded directly into the automated dialer before the start of the work day. As soon as the human operators arrive and are ready to talk, the automated dialer begins dialing and proceeds to take the appropriate action as the telephone calls are answered. The appropriate action usually consists of transferring the line to a human operator. Relevant information associated with the person called is displayed on a computer terminal viewed by the human operator and the operator responds by either conveying information to or obtaining information from the person contacted. The operator then "wraps up" the telephone call, making whatever entries are necessary on the computer terminal while viewing an account record on the computer terminal. In those cases where the telephone call is unanswered, a record of the unsuccessful attempt is made by the automated dialer.
For example, the personal records of delinquent debtors could be selected from the database of all customers and downloaded from a mainframe computer system to be dunned on a Tuesday morning. The delinquent debtors' telephone numbers would be downloaded directly into an automated dialer and, if the telephone call is answered, the line will be transferred to an operator viewing the debtor's credit history and other information. The operator speaks to the debtor or the debtor's spouse regarding the delinquency. The operator then wraps up the telephone call by entering a record of the action on the computer terminal. A record of the call is made by the automated dialer, the account record is updated and the operator responds to the next call.
However, frequently the call is not answered or the individual answering the telephone is not the person with whom contact is desired but is instead someone else, a "wrong party contact." The desired individual may be at work (and the number dialed is the person's home telephone number) or the person may simply be out when the call is made. The fact that most people may be reached at two telephone numbers, a work number during the day and a home number in the morning and evening, decreases the likelihood of calling the telephone number where the desired individual can be found. This problem of calling a telephone number when the person to be contacted is not there is more significant when an extensive geographic area encompassing several time zones is covered in a single day from one teleprocessing center. These problems result in a significant waste of resources making wrong party contacts that needlessly irritate the person answering the telephone and reduce the useful productivity of each individual operator. Operators in outbound dialing environments often spend half their time on unproductive wrong party contacts.
Predictive dialers have been developed to increase efficiency in automated outbound dialing systems. Telephone numbers are dialed at a rate designed to keep the human operators constantly busy without leaving answered calls on hold until a human operator is available (so-called nuisance calls). U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,599,493, 4,829,563, 4,881,261, 4,933,964, and 5,179,589 show various methods for enhancing predictive dialing. Although predictive dialers have proved useful in minimizing the time an operator is idle between calls, they have proved ineffective at reducing the wasted time operators spend on wrong party contacts.
Predictive dialer systems typically do not perform an analysis of relative call priority, times of increased likelihood of contacting the desired individuals and performance-based predictions of available resources. Contact attempts are essentially made randomly, without discriminating between low and high priority contact attempts. In addition, predictive dialers are unable to address staffing problems, resulting in too few operators during peak contact times; operators wasting time on inefficient contact attempts or operators wasting time on wrong party contacts during those times of day when the persons being called are unlikely to answer the telephone. These problems of wrong party contacts, unsorted and unsortable dialer-downloads and suboptimal staffing were simply not addressed until the invention of the campaign optimizer.